My Real Estate Blog

Keep this in mind: The consumer confidence index had been on a fairly steady upward trend for much of the past two quarters. And the historical fact is that sudden, short spikes downward in the index are not unusual coming out a recession.

RDQ Economics noted last week that consumer confidence had "double dipped" in each of the two most recent recoveries following recessions - in early 1992 and then again in early 2003 - and in neither case did the national economy slip back into recession.  

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan thinks the U.S. economy is undergoing what he calls "a typical pause" that is being triggered by stock market worries about European national debt levels and their impact on the global recovery.

But let's be real here, virtually every housing analyst predicted there would be sharp falloffs in pending and closed sales in the months immediately following the expiration of the federal tax credit program.

But it's NOT all gloom and doom!

The latest Case-Shiller home price index shows that home values are up in 18 of the 20 major metropolitan markets it tracks, with year over year jumps in prices like 7% for Washington DC, 8% for Los Angeles, 5% for Boston.

Home values were up 4% on average nationwide compared with the year before.

You can't argue with those numbers either